26/09/2025
Outstanding
Bula Choudhury is the first woman to swim the world’s seven seas - inspired by a Bengali fairy story about a prince who crossed those seas for love...
"I used to dream during my childhood that a prince would come by crossing the seven seas and marry me," Bula says.
Bula grew up in a small town in west Bengal, 🇮🇳 India, and she loved the water from very the start.
"I was not interested in going to school and other kinds of stuff. I played with water wherever it was, in a bucket or anywhere," she says.
When she was two, her father taught her to swim in a pond near her house. Seeing her talent, her parents enrolled her in a swimming club near the river Ganges. The coach said she was a born swimmer - and would be a champion one day.
His words came true: Bula went on to win six gold medals at the 1991 South Asian Federation Games.
One day, Bula overheard a conversation about long distance swimmers. She remembered her childhood dream - and decided she would try to cross the seven seas herself.
Despite her successful swimming career, many people told her a woman just couldn't do it.
"In my small village where I grew up, people used to judge based on gender. A girl has boundaries. People always say no, you can't do it."
But Bula asked - why not?
She decided that her first sea crossing would be the English channel between the UK and France. Unfortunately she had no idea just how cold it would be:
"When I threw myself into the English water for the first time, I never thought I could cross it because it was unbearably cold!"
Despite the chilling pain, Bula told herself she had to do it, and eventually crossed the 21 miles of cold choppy water in just under 11 hours. Then, it wasn't until ten years later, after the birth of her son, that she felt ready to take on another epic swim.
She reminded herself of her belief that it's mothers, not fictional princes, who really take on life's big challenges. And in August 2004, she completed her final crossing - the strait between India and Sri Lanka.
"If you get married and have a child, that's not life's end," she says. "It's the starting point. You can do whatever you want."
🎧 https://bbc.in/3IcWdi4
